I grew up in Canberra, Australia. I enjoyed playing a variety of sports in my younger days. I played rugby union, soccer, basketball and volleyball in local competitions. I also enjoyed playing social tennis.
As I got older I decided to focus on playing volleyball. I played indoor volleyball for the first time at the Australian schools championship held in Wagga Wagga in 1982. My first ever competitive match was representing the ACT at these championships. In 1984 I was part of the Phillip College team that won the Australian schools cup.
I then joined the Panthers volleyball club which at the time was the top club in Canberra. The team won multiple ACT State League titles as well as back to back Good Neighbour titles in 1987-88. I also represented the ACT at several Australian junior championships.
In the late 80's I was introduced to outdoor volleyball, first on grass and then I travelled to Sydney to play beach volleyball for the first time. It was a tough introduction to the sport as that tournament was held at Narrabeen beach which had very deep sand.
Beach volleyball became my first love and I worked hard on my game and joined the Pro Beach volleyball tour. During my beach career I made several finals and was a top ten player for several seasons.
Just when beach volleyball looked likely to explode in Australia it went in the other direction due to a number of factors. In 1996-97 I had a horror season when several times my playing partner got injured, or there was a time when my potential partner forget to enter a tournament on time.
After that experience I put my hat in the ring to be selected for a posting. I was playing beach volleyball part-time and working with Foreign Affairs and Trade full-time. I was fortunate to be selected to go to Beijing as the Post Systems Administrator.
It was an interesting time to be in China. Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese and the country was developing rapidly. My work was not terribly exciting but I managed to recreate what I did and took on more technical roles.
After my posting to Beijing I returned to Canberra and worked as the Intranet manager. I also was in communication with my girlfriend from Beijing, who became my wife.
Years went on and I moved into payroll at DFAT, before deciding enough was enough and I asked to take long service leave to explore other opportunities in life. This was not granted as due to poor management, no one was trained to cover my absence. In the end I resigned. The next week I was back as a contractor to train someone to run the payroll so that I could receive my final pay.
Several months passed by and I was offered a job as a contractor where I provided support to the payroll unit, there was no escaping as I took the easy and comfortable options.
Eventually, I was shown the door by a manipulative boss. I trained a temporary contractor too well covering aspects of my job. The boss found out about this and took the opportunity to dismiss me and then engage the other worker on a much lower salary. Even though he only could do about 75 per cent of what I did, that was enough to satisfy the DFAT work supply contract.
At that time another easy option came up and I took a position as a contractor in the payroll section. Finally my time at DFAT came to an end as I worked the maximum period in that job and a security clearance I had been waiting on for four years, still had not been completed. Getting that clearance would have allowed me to commence in a permanent job I had been selected for within the DFAT Internet team.
Now I was out of the public service environment after having started with Foreign Affairs in 1984. I started my own business creating websites and providing marketing services to small businesses.
Things started off well however I got several clients and I made the mistake of not outsourcing the design work. I had no time to do my own marketing to attract new clients. I did have a few I was expecting to come onboard but when those deals fell through I found myself without a regular cashflow.
I had to support a wife and two children as my son had been born in November 2010 and my then wife was on unpaid maternity leave.
As we needed money in a hurry I contacted a job agency and found myself working in the Finance section of AusAID. This was not my ideal job however it paid the bills. Two years passed and I found myself working in the Internet section at AusAID, I just had a one month contract but things worked out for me. I have always had in interest in photography. I had also done video editing. At that time two people who worked in the multimedia sub-section decided to move on.
I was in the right place at the right time and was offered a one-year contract to be the multimedia officer. I was mostly filming internal presentations and photographing as well. This was great fun and I got to photograph Gary Kasparov, former Prime Minister John Howard, foreign minister Julie Bishop and many other interesting subjects.
During this time the Australian government changed and the incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that AusAID would merge with DFAT, also he announced that no current contractors would have their contracts extended. That resulted in me becoming part of DFAT again, but only until June 2014 when my contract expired.
Now I was again working from home in my own business. I got more into photography, frequently photographing speakers at the National Press Club and covering events in Parliament House. This was mostly for Inside Canberra, the longest running political newsletter based in the Parliament House press gallery.
I also at this time started exploring options for home-based businesses.
